


Days Gone By

by campe-silky (SilkyinaBottle)



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Christmas, Family Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Hanukkah, Holidays, M/M, Nikki and Neil are step-siblings, Winter, dadvid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 09:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkyinaBottle/pseuds/campe-silky
Summary: Throughout the busy months of November and December, Max and Neil both learn what it means to be a family.





	Days Gone By

**Author's Note:**

> merry crimmus, tony!! here's some fluffy nonsense that i thought you'd enjoy. hopefully i'll be able to put out the rest by the end of the year, or maybe i'll add part two next year! who knows???
> 
> (for reference, i used a 2019 calendar for the dates, since it would matter in part 2 for hanukkah and whatnot.)

It’s November 1st and Max is slowly losing his mind. He woke up half an hour past noon, expecting a nice, quiet Sunday after a long night of collecting candy and egging houses when David’s back was turned. Instead he wandered into their living room and found fairy lights strung up on every visible surface. There’s a little plastic snowman sitting on their coffee table and a candy-cane-striped rug on the floor. There are fucking  _ stockings  _ hung up by the key rack.

The sweet smell of hot chocolate wafting through the apartment is the only thing keeping Max from ending his life right now. He makes his way towards the kitchen, stepping over several boxes of ornaments on the way.

The floor creaks as he takes his first step in, just like it always does, and David turns to look at him from his spot by the kitchen counter. “Good morning, Max!” he chirps, his face lighting up like their goddamn living room.

“It’s the afternoon,” he snidely remarks, “and also the day after Halloween, in case somebody forgot to remind you.”

This doesn’t seem to bother him, which, after living with him for seven months, is rather predictable. “Oh, I know! I just thought we should start getting in the holiday spirit!”

Max gives him a look that he hopes portrays his current mood, which is,  _ “I would literally rather die.”  _ When David only smiles and blinks at him in response, he sighs and brushes past him. “Whatever. Give me some hot chocolate.”

“Well, sure thing, Max, but you should probably have something to eat with it—”

“Like marshmallows?” he asks, swinging open the pantry door. “Yeah, I agree.” David is strangely silent as he searches through their food, and it doesn’t take him long to realize why. “...David.”

“Yes?”

“Where the fuck are the marshmallows?”

“Well, I figured, after yesterday, you would have had enough sweets—”

“So you made  _ hot chocolate?”  _ He slams the pantry door shut and marches straight back into the living room.

“Wait, Max!” he hears David cry, and he can’t help but roll his eyes. It’s so like him to worry that he’s actually upset Max over fucking  _ marshmallows. _

He grabs his shoes from by the door and starts strapping them on. “Fucking… calm down, I’m just going to the store to grab what you forgot!” He hardly even cares that he’s still in his pyjamas. He’ll just throw on a hoodie over them, no one will notice. Besides, his hoodies have started to get more and more oversized over the years anyways, as puberty started to come around and he had to worry about… developing.

“Do you want me to go with you?” David calls out, and Max rolls his eyes.

“I’m thirteen! I can take care of myself for twenty fucking minutes!” He makes sure to punctuate the statement with a door slam as he heads outside into the cold.

 

It’s November 3rd and Neil’s family seems to be in complete disarray. His father is dragging several boxes out of the garage: some he’s seen before—they’re full of decorations for Hanukkah, mostly for the fireplace mantle—and some he can’t recognize, though the word “Xmas” scrawled on the side in Candy’s handwriting gives him a clue. She seems busy enough on her own, though, unloading several bags of groceries at the kitchen counter. He spots a carton of eggnog (right next to a glass bottle of rum) and some sugar cookie mix, but he’s also pretty sure one of those bags is almost exclusively full of cheese and potatoes.

And then there’s Nikki, sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, scribbling something down hurriedly on a piece of paper. He walks over to her with some hesitance and sits by her side.

It’s been nine months since the wedding, and Neil is still reeling a little. He never expected Candy—Candy Greenwood, who hooked up with his dad once at Parents’ Day and then tossed a fake number in his direction so she wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of her actions—to find her way into his family. To actually  _ fall  _ for his father. To go out and get groceries for them, when before menial labor seemed to be so  _ beneath  _ her.

But here they are. Fuck, when Neil gave her his blessing to propose, part of him thought it was some kind of sick joke. Well, okay, not  _ really,  _ because otherwise he would have told her not to. But part of his brain still hasn’t caught up to the reality of the situation. And isn’t that weird? His brain is usually so much quicker than this.

“What are you up to?” Neil asks his step-sister, leaning over to get a look at the paper she’s scrawling on.

“Writing a letter to Santa!” Nikki chirps, and Neil honestly shouldn’t be surprised, but he is.

“Christmas is nearly two months away, Nikki. You already know what you want?”

Nikki pauses in her writing to turn and pout at him. “It’s November, Neil, you dummy! So Christmas is only  _ one  _ month away!”

“Alright, but it’s the  _ beginning  _ of November, and Christmas is at the  _ end  _ of December, so really…” The look on Nikki’s face has hardly changed. “You know what? Never mind.” Santa doesn’t even exist anyways, so what is he worrying for? If Nikki thinks of something she wants after she finishes the letter, she can just tell Candy, and then Santa will just ‘magically’ find out about it.

The whole thing is… charming, in a way. Not the lying to children part. But all the lights, the colors, the copious amounts of sugar… He knows it’s all a bunch of commercialism, deep down, and people love to pit it against his own holiday, but he doesn’t _hate_ it.

After all that fuss Nikki threw back when it snowed at Camp Campbell, he can’t, really. Something about her enthusiasm is a little contagious, even if he isn’t really participating.

...And some of the traditions are sort of appealing, in a way. Like mistletoe, for instance.

Shit, no, he can’t think about this kind of stuff around his family. He told himself he wouldn’t. Because the more he thinks about it, the weirder he acts, and the weirder he acts, the more his family will notice something is  _ up, _ and if they notice something is up, then they’ll ask, and he won’t have have an answer for them.

Except the truth. Which he can’t tell them.

His eyes focus on Nikki’s handwriting against stark white, red, and green paper. He has no idea how Candy reads this. Probably through experience. His dad will probably have better luck, being a college professor. He probably sees horrible handwriting all the time. Between the two of them, they should be able to piece together Nikki’s Christmas list.

“I’m going to make some breakfast,” he tells Nikki, but really he doesn’t care if she hears. Maybe she shouldn’t, because he isn’t hungry at all. This is just his opportunity to escape so he can hide in his room and collect himself enough to face his family again.

He pulls himself to his feet before she even has an opportunity to respond—or notice he’s leaving at all.

 

It’s November 6th and Max officially hates being outside. Not that he doesn’t hate the outdoors  _ normally— _ David basically conditioned him to detest it—but it’s a thousand times worse when it’s snowing like a motherfucker when he gets out of school and he has to walk home.

“You gonna be good, Max?” one of his classmates—Eric, his de facto partner-in-crime in Nikki and Neil’s absence—asks him. “My mom says she’ll drive you home if you want.”

But Max shakes his head stubbornly, of course, because the day he trusts an adult is the day he dies. Even if he’s letting  _ camp man  _ have legal say over him. If anything, that just makes him want to push away any source of authority even more. “I’m good,” he insists, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. He clutches at the fabric from the inside, looking for any source of warmth he can exploit.

He hunches his shoulders and starts the march home, ignoring Eric’s cries of protest behind him. He’ll be over it by Thursday morning. The people who attach themselves to Max just learn to be comfortable being kept at arm’s length.

Usually.

“Ah, Max, there you are!” A familiar,  _ irritating  _ voice draws Max’s eyes forward, and he instantly regrets not accepting a ride from Eric. There, trudging through the snow in his stupid camping boots, is David. He’s got a fucking  _ umbrella  _ with him. “I was worried I wouldn’t catch you!” He rushes towards Max—as fast as he can, what with the snow coming down so hard—and holds the umbrella out over Max’s head.

“What the fuck are you doing over here?” he cries, backhanding the umbrella so it flies out of David’s hands and winds up in the snow. At least, that was his intent, but David only ends up fumbling with it a little. “I told you not to come around here!” There’s about a million awful things that could happen, each one more embarrassing than the last. Max doesn’t want to give any assholes fuel to harass him.

David frowns; no, he  _ pouts,  _ like some kind of fucking child. “Max, you see how hard it’s snowing. I just wanted to make sure you got home safe.”

He feels like curling up in a ball right here in the snow. “You need to stop fucking babying me.”

“I’m allowed to worry,” David says, brushing the snow off of his shoulders. Max lets out a chattering breath, realizing for the first time just how deeply the cold has affected him. Snowflakes are sticking to his hoodie like some kind of frozen infestation, but as David runs his gloved hands over them, they smear, leaving damp, dark blue spots scattered across the fabric.

“You’re fucking it up,” Max mutters, but he feels no small sense of relief.

And maybe David hears it in his voice, because he just smiles and says, “Let’s go home.”

 

It’s November 8th and Neil has triple-checked the lock on his bedroom door. He rushed home after school and opened up Skype on his laptop as quickly as he possibly could, because today is one of those very special days. The kind of day that gets him through the rest of the week.

Today he gets to see Snake. His  _ boyfriend. _

It’s hard to say how it happened, exactly. It started with saving each other a dance every Summer Social, out of some kind of strange solidarity after the Flower Scout incident, and turned into sneaking into each others camps and stealing kisses on the edge of Lake Lilac.

It was… different from what he felt for Erin. If what he felt was even anything at all. He sort of just heard scientific words leave her mouth and felt this rush of…  _ excitement.  _ After all, it isn’t very often someone else shares one of his interests. But after what he’s been through with Snake… he’s pretty confident it was an eagerness to befriend her, a sentiment he mistook for a crush, because of course that’s what he was supposed to be feeling. He was eleven, he was supposed to like girls, that’s what happened to all boys his age.

Except… it didn't. And Snake happened instead. It could have been just a throwaway summer romance, sure, but Neil is clingy and Snake is stubborn, and so it became… what it is today.

What it is today is good. “So, what did you get me for the holidays?”

Neil stifles a laugh, raising a hand to cover his mouth. His face is  _ warm,  _ like it always gets when he talks to Snake. “You know I’m not telling you.”

Snake frowns—it’s almost a pout, really—narrowed one uncovered eye at Neil. “I’m your boyfriend, you’re morally obligated to.” He says it with a straight face, but Neil knows him well enough to know he’s joking.

“You know that doesn’t work on me either,” he says with a chuckle. Just the use of that word, the reminder that he’s another boy’s  _ boyfriend,  _ makes him feel all fluttery inside. He’d probably describe it as the opposite of anxiety. It’s fantastic.

“I know.” There’s just the barest hint of smile on his face. “But if you’re gonna get me anything, you should get me a scarf or something.”

“Oh yeah?” He raises his eyebrows a little. He knows Snake lives a decent way up north, so it must be a fair bit colder up there.

Snake nods and tersely explains, “It’s been snowing. I’ll live, but… still snowing.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

Snake simply shrugs, as if it’s to be expected.

Neil sighs. “I really do wish I could send you something, though.” Without having to get a ride from his dad or Candy to the post office and getting asked a hundred questions about what he was mailing and to who. “Even if it was just a shitty scarf.”

“It wouldn’t be shitty,” Snake mumbles. “Because it would be from you.”

The fluttery feeling comes back in one big wave, and Neil collapses into a puddle in front of his laptop. “...Shut up.”

 

It’s November 11th and Max is having an off-day, or as he usually calls it (a little more bluntly), a depressive episode. David calls the school office to let them know Max will be absent for the day, and Max curls up in a big blanket burrito and starts watching dog videos on his phone.

There’s one thing that particularly sucks about this: David has the day off from work. That means he’s  _ constantly  _ checking up on Max to see how he’s doing. “Is there anything I can get for you, Max?” he always asks. “You feeling any better, kiddo?”

Max always groans and rolls over, ignoring him in favor of watching Samoyed puppies wrestle each other. But after about the sixth or seventh time, David sighs and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Max stiffens, waiting for him to say something, and it isn’t long until he does.

“Is this something I should be taking seriously, Max?”

It’s not something he expected, especially from David, who, since the start of the month, has been prancing around the house as if sadness doesn’t exist. He hesitates for a moment, watching a Chow Chow puppy waddle around on hardwood floor, before speaking. “It’s whatever, David.”

“You’ve made it very clear that it’s not,” he says plainly. “You’ve called it ‘depression’ plenty of times outright.”

Max shrugs as best as he can, wrapped up tight in all of his blankets. “Yeah, because I’m depressed. That’s just how it fucking is.”

“...That doesn’t mean there’s nothing that can be done about it,” David points out, his voice soft.

Max locks his phone and slowly sets it to the side. “What are you getting at…?”

“I think it’s time we started looking into finding you a therapist, Max.”

“What?” He feels his entire body go cold, and he rolls over to glare daggers at David. “No. Fuck that. David, I’m not gonna listen to some overly-cheery  _ rando  _ tell me how to live my life.”

“That isn’t what it’s like, Max.”

“How the hell would you know?! You’re so goddamn happy all the time, it’s not like you have to go through the same shit I do.”

David’s face falls. “I know our experiences aren’t comparable, Max, but you shouldn’t make assumptions. I went through counseling when I was your age, too. It’s entirely normal. And winter is a particularly bad time for those with depression. I just want to make sure I’m doing all I can to support you.”

Max wants to continue to cry, to scream and yell and fight it, but what the hell is he supposed to say? David just demolished his only argument. So he just averts his eyes and curls up in his little blanket bundle.

He hears David let out a long breath, and then a calloused hand runs through his curls comfortingly. “We can talk about this tomorrow, alright? I just wanted to run the idea by you.”

Max says nothing and shuts his eyes tight. It’s not until David’s hand leaves his hair and the door shuts that he’s able to get some sleep.

 

It’s November 15th and Neil did not expect it to snow so soon. Not that it never snows in Washington, but halfway through November? Hardly likely. And yet here he is, standing on their front porch and surveying the snowy scene while Nikki drags out a large variety of snow equipment he had no idea they even owned.

“What are you even going to do with that?” Neil asks as she carries out a toboggan. “There aren’t any hills in our front yard.”

“I was gonna ride it down the street!” she chirps.

Oh, god, no. “Absolutely not.” He reaches out to snatch it from her, but she yanks it away, making him stumble forward. She’s lucky he doesn’t fall down the steps. “Nikki!”

She pouts, holding the sled close to her. “Well, where else am I supposed to take it?”

“To the park?” he suggests.

Nikki glances around the various tools and toys scattered around their whitened lawn and presses her lips together. “I think I’d have to make two trips…”

He rolls his eyes and starts making his way down the steps. “Of course you won’t. I’m going with you.”

She instantly perks up. “You  _ are?” _

“Yes, I am,” he confirms, picking up what looks to be a snowball launcher and tucking it under his arm. Nikki whoops and cheers, letting Neil know in an instant that he’s made the right decision.

 

It’s November 20th and Max did not agree to go skiing today. But David—stupid, over-enthusiastic David—insisted on going the first day the ski resort was open for business. Despite the fact that Max doesn’t know how to ski. So it’s probably inevitable that, after only two hours of trying to make it work, they ended up cooped up inside, sipping cups of peppermint hot cocoa.

David seems pretty downtrodden at today’s overall lack of success, but he seems a little cheerier with each sip of the sweet beverage. But Max is honestly paying more attention to his phone than he is to him.

_ Skiing in the middle of November? I know it’s David, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but really? _

Max almost manages a chuckle at that. Leave it to Neil to make such a big deal out of a shitty situation that it actually makes the other person feel better.

**_he really likes this place, apparently. said he comes every year_ **

**_this is just the first time i’ve had to put up with it_ **

_ If it makes you feel better, at least you’re not saddled with Nikki. _

_ One can only survive having snow stuffed down the back of their coat so many times. _

**_don’t die on me so soon_ **

_ You wish you could get rid of me so easily. _

David lets out a dramatic sigh, and Max clicks his tongue before glancing back down at his phone.

**_david’s being mopey, gotta deal w that. i’ll talk to you later_ **

_ Got it. Have fun freezing to death. _

Max huffs, hiding a not-yet-fully-formed smile, before putting his phone away and looking back to David. Apparently, that’s all he needed, because he quickly begins to speak. “I’m sorry, Max. I really thought getting out of the house today would do us both some good.”

“I thought that’s what the therapy was for,” he deadpans.

David looks a bit startled at that response, but he seems to take it in stride. “Well, yes, but like I said before, I want to do whatever I can to support—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” he cuts in, waving him off. “I wasn’t even being serious.” He’s had over a week to get used to the idea of it, especially since David won’t stop bringing it up. He just reserves the right to remain a little snarky about it, at least until his sessions start.

David seems to brighten for a second, relieved, but his face falls again soon enough. “I just hope you weren’t too discouraged by all of it… I didn’t mean to draw attention to something you were unskilled at.”

“Oh my god, I’m unskilled at  _ most things,  _ David!”

“Now, don’t say that—”

“It’s true! Everyone is! There are so many fucking things to do in the world, it’s impossible to be experienced in every single one! And to say somebody should be is absolutely ridiculous.”

“Th-that isn’t what I was getting at!” he stammers, clearly panicked. “I just thought maybe… maybe…”

Max takes a long sip of hot chocolate as David tries to find his words, and when he doesn’t, it sets it back down with a sure  _ clack.  _ “That I should try. I get it. And it’s not like… I don’t care. It’s a thing we did. It’s over now. And it’s not like I want to  _ pursue  _ it, but…,” and there’s a great hesitation before he continues, “I wouldn’t mind trying it again next year.”

The look on David’s face is absolutely priceless, and Max wishes he had snapped a picture of it just to show Nikki and Neil what an over-enthusiastic idiot his father figure can be.

 

It’s November 24th and Neil needs to start Hanukkah shopping. Christmas shopping? Holiday shopping.

He and Nikki have managed to fit together on Neil’s twin-sized bed in order to get on Skype for a very special purpose: the name drawing for CCSSG’s annual holiday gift exchange. CCSSG, of course, stands for the Camp Campbell Survivors Support Group, although it mostly consists of dicking around over these calls and sometimes playing Cards Against Humanity online (Ered has made finding custom decks into an art).

“Is it ready yet, Neil?” Space Kid (they never did stop calling him that) asks, bouncing up and down from where he’s sitting on his bed.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t  _ ready.”  _ In previous years, one person was nominated to randomly select the gift-givers, and just had to live with knowing who was going to give them a present, but  _ this year  _ Neil has devised a solution: he’s created a program that will pick the match-ups for them and send each of them a message to let them know who they have to give a present to. It’s basically perfect.

Really, it’s a Secret Santa in everything but name, and Neil sort of appreciates that. It’s a little thing, but it counts.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Harrison asks, rolling his eyes. Stuck-up bastard. “Send out the assignments already.” God, if Neil weren’t feeling so nice, he’d totally fuck with the program so he and Nerris were each other’s gift-givers. They’d hate that.

Also, she just wouldn’t deserve that kind of torment. “Just give him a minute, Harrison,” she bites out, shutting him up instantly.

And it indeed only takes a minute. Neil boots up the program, enters in the right info, and lets it run. Within seconds he has a message with his assignment.

_ “Nikki.” _

Huh. Well, that makes things easy.

“Who’d ya get, who’d ya get?!” Nikki asks, trying to glance over his shoulder.

He hurriedly shoves her away. He’d have sent her toppling off of the bed if she weren’t at least three times stronger. “We’re still on call, Nikki! And I wouldn’t tell you anyways.” He can hear Max snickering from his laptop speakers, and he quickly turns to glare at his pixelated face. “Shut up, you. I hope you got someone you hate.”

“That would be literally any of you.”

“Max _ millian!”  _ Preston gasps, only mock offended. “Surely you don’t  _ mean  _ such a thing.”

Max’s eyes narrow in retaliation, and from there everything devolves into madness, just as it always does.


End file.
